Our candidate Howard Dean will be back in Portland next week. We wish we could be there (though we’re still talking about how much we enjoyed the Al Franken event for Gephardt last night). Governor Dean should be riding high in Portland after receiving the endorsement from two major unions. As a small-time contributor, I got to vote to recommend that Dean opt-out of public financing so that he has a (hopefully) more level playing field against Bush in the fall. Wouldn’t a Dean / Clark ticket be the best? If anyone needs a reason to vote against Bush next year there are more than just a few in the news today:
Bush takes quiet aim at 'green' laws
U.S. Black Hawk Helicopter Down in Iraq, Six Die
U.S. Sees Imminent Attacks in Saudi, Shuts Embassy
Jessica Lynch Criticizes U.S. Accounts of Her Ordeal
The only bad news for anyone really interested in ousting Bush is the news that Ralph Nader is about to announce the formation of a presidential exploratory committee. Nader has more ego than sense. Here’s some good advice for Nader from a Green party leader:
"I don't think Ralph Nader should run again," says Elizabeth Horton Sheff, one of the party's slowly increasing number of African-American elected officials. Sheff, the majority leader of the Hartford, Connecticut, city council, adds, "Our message of grassroots inclusion did not get through with this candidate. His appeal is not broad enough to reach my community." (Indeed, Nader only got 1 percent of the African-American vote in 2000, compared with his 3 percent overall. Even in Democratic strongholds like Washington, DC, where Nader reached 5 percent, he only got one in one hundred black votes.) Arguing that Nader reaches mainly progressive and middle-class whites, Sheff insists that the party doesn't even need a presidential candidate, concluding, "We should run someone only if they have a proven track record appealing to a cross section of America."
That’s some good political wisdom!
